This invention relates generally to porous packing items useful for packing produce The invention relates specifically to packing sleeves composed of an expandable sheet material.
Packing sleeves composed of a thin, translucent nonporous material, such as a plastic, are known to be useful in the packaging of fruit and vegetable items.
A particularly useful packing sleeve is composed of a thermoplastic material such as polyethylene foam) which contains a plurality of longitudinally-directed slits. Such slits allow the sleeve to expand to accommodate produce items having a nominal diameter larger than the non-expanded diameter of the sleeve. The natural resiliency of the thermoplastic material enables the sleeve to form a relatively snug fit about the items. Such sleeves are especially useful in the packaging of tomatoes, apples, peaches, pears, asian pears, kiwis, papayas, and mangos.
The expandable thermoplastic packing sleeves of the prior art are not effective, however, for produce items having a diameter only slightly larger than the non-expanded diameter of the packing sleeve. Such items of produce tend to fall out of the packing sleeve. This is because the packing sleeves of the prior art are expandable at both ends. Unless the items of produce are markedly larger than the non-expanded diameter of the packing sleeve (so that the sleeve fits very tightly), the items of produce will fall out of the packing sleeve.
There is therefore a need for an expandable packing sleeve which will have a greater tendency to retain packaged items than do packing sleeves of the prior art.
There is also a need for such a packing sleeve which is easy to install and inexpensive to manufacture.